Image Source: architecturaldigest.com
New York’s Hudson River Valley has long been a haunt of the region’s creative types, from the River School painters to folk musicians. There is a quality to the land that runs thick with inspiration. It’s fitting then that New York City–based architect Drew Lang selected the quaint town of Kerhonkson as the home of his latest project, Hudson Woods, a vacation community for innovative, design-conscious New Yorkers.
“Hudson Woods is a realization of a set of fantasies,” explains Lang. “We’re directing this primarily toward urban dwellers, in particular New York City dwellers, who can, by having one of these homes, balance their life with a connection with nature and have a different kind of shared set of experiences with family and friends.”
The 131-acre development. located just 100 miles north of New York City, will comprise 26 customizable glass-and-timber homes, each nestled in its own sizable parcel of unadulterated forest. Prices start at $665,000. The project, which was conceived, developed, and designed by the eight-member team at Lang Architecture, maintains a deep connection to its surroundings.
The architects collaborated with local builders, craftsmen, and artisans on all elements of the homes, from the bathrooms’ wood mirrors by Materia Designs to the handblown-glass fixtures by Deborah Ehrlich, who is based in the nearby town of Accord. But perhaps most exciting was Lang’s fortuitous discovery of a massive stock of bluestone on the property, which has been used to form stacked walls around the pools and, crushed, as gravel for the community’s shared roads.
Hudson Woods began as an attempt to reenvision the exurban environment. “It has been a strong desire on my part to redefine housing and housing developments,” Lang explained. “This is a reaction against suburbia and what it has come to represent visually and in terms of a lifestyle that’s evolved around it.”
And so far Lang’s vision has proven a great success. Although he can’t disclose the exact sales figures, he does confirm that interest has been strong—several contracts have been signed and the team has already started construction. While the buyers are diverse, Lang says that there are consistencies: “Namely, the people are keenly interested in design.”
Above all, Lang remains committed to enjoyment; on the list of customizations that buyers may select is a tree house designed by the architect himself. “It has to be fun,” Lang says. “Why else do it?”
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